This invention relates generally to the salvage industry and, in particular, to means for automatically stripping the outer casing from the rim of a wheel so that the casing and the rim can be salvaged separately.
During the scrapping of motor vehicles, it is the common practice to remove the wheels from the vehicle and attempt to salvage both the casings and the rims as separate units. Previously, when a number of wheels had been collected, they were set afire in order to burn the casings away from the rims and only the rims were recovered. This process proved to be extremely wasteful in that the casing could not be reclaimed and the burning created a serious air pollution problem. Accordingly, it has been for the most part abandoned.
Attempts have been made to separate the casings from the wheel rims with conventional tire removal tools of the type used in auto repair centers or the like. Tire changing devices of this nature are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,898,977 and 2,873,795. In order to prevent the wheel parts from being harmed, the tire changing equipment generally must be accurately fitted upon the rim by hand and the separating tool guided into contact with the casing. Typically, the equipment is complex and difficult to both mount on the wheel and operate. Consequently, a good deal of time is normally required to remove a single casing from a rim and therefore the use of this equipment in a high volume salvage operation is relatively unprofitable.
A tire stripping machine specifically designed for use in the salvage industry is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,394. The wheel to be stripped is centered upon a worktable between three equally-spaced rams that are adapted to drive wedges horizontally into the tire. Sufficient force is applied to the wheel to collapse the casing and crush the rim. Upon retraction of the wedges, the casing springs back to its original shape and is simply slipped over the deformed rim. Although this machine works quite well in producing separation, the wheels must be loaded and unloaded by hand over the top of the rams. The final removal of the casing from the rim must also be achieved manually. This, of course, takes considerable time and leads to operator fatigue. By the same token, operating three rams with sufficient force to crush a steel rim consumes a relatively high amount of energy which makes the process costly.